FREE NEWSLETTER: Econintersect sends a nightly newsletter highlighting news events of the day, and providing a summary of new articles posted on the website. Econintersect will not sell or pass your email address to others per our privacy policy. You can cancel this subscription at any time by selecting the unsubscribing link in the footer of each email.

Econintersect: Week 27 of 2012 ending 07 July 2012 shows same week rail traffic declined over 2011 levels according to data released by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

Excluding coal and grain which is not an economic indicator, rail is expanding 3.8% (last week's reported 2.7% for coal alone) same week year-over-year.

“Seven of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2011, with petroleum products, up 54.8 percent; motor vehicles and equipment, up 52.7 percent, and food and kindred products, up 11.1 percent. The groups showing a decrease in weekly traffic included iron and steel scrap, down 29.6 percent; primary forest products, down 24.1 percent, and farm products excluding grain, down 23.6 percent.”

The majority of the reason for rail year-to-date contraction is coal and grain movements - which would only effect the profitability of railroads, and not an economic indicator as coal is an alternative fuel to oil and natural gas - U.S. production of those are up sharply in recent months.

No feedback yet

Econintersect News Blog

The growing use of ad blocking software is creating a shortfall in covering our fixed expenses. Please consider a donation to Econintersect to allow continuing output of quality and balanced financial and economic news and analysis.

Keep up with economic news using our dynamic economic newspapers with the largest international coverage on the internet